Storms External & Storms Internal

Reflections 65 Miles from Ground Zero, One Year After Katrina and Rita

Either Katrina or Rita could have hit Baton Rouge but our city was spared
from those devastating storms of last year. Our friends and relatives were not
spared. Our entire coastline was hit big time. And Baton Rouge will never be the
same due to the influx of so many evacuees. An estimated 50,000 are still here.
Over in Texas, they say the hurricane that smashed into Galveston 106 years ago
created what Houston is today, a great city more inland but still vulnerable to
hurricanes. In western Louisiana, where people are still attempting to rebuild
their lives, Hurricane Rita is called "the forgotten hurricane" because it did
not directly hit Houston. Rita hit east of Houston and parishes south of Lake
Charles, Louisiana—the rural communities.

Next time a disaster could be my city or yours. Most of us here believe there
will be a next time. There is a foreboding about it. There is depression, not
only of the tropical kind, but the kind that affects the psyche. There have been
suicides. And while the death count from Katrina is under 2000 lives—still
counting—we know of many among the elderly who survived the evacuation but who
did not survive the dislocating consequences of the storms.

What observations do I make as I look over a war-zone where neighborhoods
used to reside on the Gulf Coast? Here are my observations, one year later:

The devastation was too big to fix in a year. The casinos are making a
comeback, but many homes have not changed one iota since the storms, save for
the weeds that now grow within the rubble.

Government had to assist. Thanks to the federal government, billions are
sitting in the banks of Louisiana from which the first home rebuilding payments
were only recently allocated to fund "The Road Home" program. How would you like
to be on the team that decides which homeowner receives $50K and which receives
$150K? It is an enormous undertaking. Get ready for the criticism to begin.

People are resilient, but the human spirit can break.

People are resilient and amazingly resourceful. They are inspirations of a
high order.

The work we do to make a difference is extremely meaningful work. We bless
all volunteers who come to the Gulf Coast to help. On Saturday, a team of 17
adults from our church drove down to New Orleans and gutted a home. They were
exhausted. But after a night's rest, they were in church the next morning
smiling from ear to ear, telling the congregation about their experience with
their Power Point Prayer.

We are contingent beings. If there were ever to be an agreed upon confession
for UUs, let it be the acknowledgement that we are interdependent, yes, and
contingent, double yes.

And if there is anything that seems to get us through bad stuff, it's this
little sentence we tell each other: "I don't know exactly how we are going to
get through this, but we will get through this together."